


Absolute

by Anonymous



Series: Cosmic Chronicles [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anti Clarke Griffin, Character Death, Drabble, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-14 21:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18060074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Death doesn’t discriminate, but its Commander does.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> I just had a thought and rolled with it? I tagged it as _anti_ just in case. Might write the death scene that inspired it, might not. It is what it is.

_** (now) ** _

There’s a sentence inscribed sloppily inside the time-worn cover: _History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes_. Bellamy doesn’t know whose handwriting it is or to whom the quote can be attributed, and yet, knowing either of those things would do little to quell the fury caused by the words. He snaps the book shut and throws it across the room. 

The book crashes into the opposite wall before heaping into a sorry mess of loose pages and frayed threads. Bellamy should be aghast at the state of it and at himself for being the cause, but... 

“...it’s just a book,” he says, resigned.

The silence is unpleasantly heavy, the sound of his uneven breathing filling the empty room. The silence is uncomfortably thick and bordering on asphyxiating, much like the swelling rage within. Pressure both internal and external makes him feel too big in his own skin, the blood in his ears drumming out a tempo that’s mismatched with his stillness. If he dares to shudder on a breath, he might very well come apart.

Throwing things suddenly feels like the very best of ideas. If he ruins—shatters, destroys, tears apart—the world around him, then maybe he’ll feel a little less out of place. Maybe, just maybe, this world without Echo will feel a little less like a slap in the face.

* * *

The warm pressure on his forehead is unwelcome. Consciousness is quick on instinct’s heels as he snatches at the heat’s source. A wrist—skin and bone. It too can be broken, he thinks. 

Bellamy sinks his fingertips into it, opening red-rimmed eyes to glare at whoever thought it wise to touch him.

“Clarke,” he seethes, low and devastatingly sharp.

“You’re hurting me, Bellamy,” she replies, making no effort to shake off or pry his hand away. Her expression is as impassive as she can muster. He tightens his grip, just to see her wince.

Then he realises he’s touching her, and let’s go as if he’s been burnt. _Disgusting_ , he thinks.

“Don’t fucking touch me then,” he snaps.

It takes a moment for Bellamy to realise where he is. He’s sitting with his back to the wall, the ground solid beneath him. Around them the room is in shambles, and a glance at the flickering lamp shattered on the cobblestone is a reminder of— 

“I need to examine you,”

—his earlier exploits. It’d worn him out, but somehow it doesn’t feel like enough.

“No,”—he inhales deeply, expression darkening— “What you _need_ to do is bring Echo back.”

“Echo’s gone, Bellamy,” she tells him.

The urge to wash her name from Clarke’s tongue with Clarke’s blood is strong. Has she always sounded this insincere? Was he always this blind to the hollowness of her remorse? It’s not the first time Clarke Griffin has to answer for herself, though for so long Bellamy had let it go, believing himself as responsible as she is.

His fists tighten at his sides. Once more, Bellamy feels the turmoil within. It’s enough to push him to his feet, boots scrapping against the stone. There’s nothing left in this room to destroy other than himself and the blonde now standing before him. His knuckles whiten as he considers giving in. If he weren’t a better man, then he would. If he weren’t still trying to be the man Echo loves— _loved_ —he would wrap his bloodstained fingers around the column of Clarke’s throat and squeeze the life out of her.

To think he might have once loved her. Bellamy glances away, scoffing at the thought. If it weren’t for his loyalty to Echo, then he’d self-destruct and take out as many as he could starting, first and foremost, with the blonde before him. _Wanheda_.

“And whose fault is that?” he spits, venomous and cruel.

“I tried—I didn’t know, Bel—I—”

“—No, you didn’t. You never do, but still, on and on you go. Collateral damage, after all, is your M.O.”

“That’s not fair. Echo knew—”

“No, she didn’t. Echo trusted _you_ to know,” he interjects. Then, he pauses. A verbal battle isn’t going to quell his thirst for war. He rakes a hand through his hair and steps around her, adding, defeated: “You know what? Forget it. Get out.”

“Bellamy, I need to—”

“GET OUT!”

If the building wasn’t made out of stone it’d no doubt rumble, his roar unprecedented. The quiet buzz of activity beyond the door abruptly stops, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. As long as they all stay outside their— _his_ —quarters, he’s content to let them exist beyond his own imploding bubble.

“Bellamy, we need to check fo—”

Bellamy turns on his heel and steps into her space. This time she’s the one with her back to the wall, looking up at him with a poorly patched-up mask of defiance and dignity. He searches her face, breathing hot and heavy onto her chin. He can barely feel her breath over the thump of his own artery in his throat.

“You step foot in here again and I will kill you,” he says.

Clarke is smart enough not to respond.

“If anything else happens to my family as a consequence of your actions, then I will see to it that yours is taken from you too,” he adds, matter-of-factly. Threatening the Commander’s life won’t bode well with her people, but whatever loyalty he felt towards the kid and all she represents has died with Echo. Bellamy’s tired of fighting other people’s wars. All he wanted was 80 acres, but that too was taken from him. For someone who claims to mean him no harm, Clarke’s been incredibly consistent.

“Now,”—he takes a step back, then another— “Get the fuck out of my sight.”


	2. II

_** (then) ** _

Echo’s dead.  
  
The realisation burns through Bellamy like smouldering coal searing time-worn muslin. It carves itself through the very fabric of his being. A gaping wound. Irreparable. He’s heaving great big breaths that taste of ash and smell of cordite and sulphur. Every puff of air feels too big for his throat. Every breath has a jagged edge—cutting, biting—and isn’t enough to fill his lungs.

His eyes sting. The smoke acrid and thick as it curls towards the night sky. The incessant flicker—war is a light-show—masks thousands of stars. Bellamy blinks the tears away, but it does little to clear his vision. He feels the world spinning beneath his unsteady feet, but the axis has tilted. He doesn’t feel the salt on his skin—skin greased with sweat, gunpowder, ash, and blood. 

So much blood.  
Everywhere. 

Even under the cover of darkness he can see it. Carnelian, carmine, burgundy. When it catches the light from the explosions overhead, it’s almost a _pretty_ colour. The blood wells across the valleys of her stilled throat, staining her alabaster skin. Skin whitened by underexposure to the planet's harsh suns.

Bellamy always remarked how some people looked peaceful once gone.  
Echo doesn’t.  
Echo's lifeless eyes stare up at him, unseeing and glazed with unshed tears. 

Her death wasn’t quick. There must have been a few moments before her consciousness slipped to another plane. It must have been enough for her to realise. It certainly was long enough for the fear to imprint itself on her bloodstained face. 

There’s an uncomfortable, visceral feeling in his chest as he recognises the expression her lifeless face as terror. Echo died afraid. Echo died alone. Echo died in pain.

The battlefield is crowded—loud and bustling—but it feels like they’re alone in the world. It’s only him and her. There’s no comfort in that thought, not when it’s clear that it really is just him. She’s gone, already ferried by Charon across a bourn from which no traveller returns. She has gone to a place he cannot follow, at least not yet. 

_Soon_ , he thinks. 

_Soon_ , Bellamy promises, ghosting his thumb over her soft lips before seeking to close her eyes. Something slams into him—solid and heavy—before he manages to. The weight crashing into him is almost as encompassing as the grief. 

It’s not grief. It’s Nathan Miller.

Nathan, who manhandles him to his feet, screaming something urgent and angry and panicked. _Oh yeah,_ Bellamy thinks as the bullet catches his shoulder, _we’re at war._ He finds himself unmoved by the realisation, animal instinct the only reason he reacts to the pain. Someone’s on his heels. He turns and registers a face he remembers but still doesn’t quite recognise. His sister, once, he thinks. Except he can’t think too clearly, not when he’s stumbling after Nathan and being ushered forward by Octavia. He keeps looking over his shoulder at Echo’s body, notably unhappy about the growing distance. 

Octavia shoves him forward, incandescent.  He staggers as the white heat of pain sears through his numbness and feels himself buckle under his weight. His knees never hit the floor. Once more he is slammed into, flanked by Octavia and eventually by John Murphy too. _Oh good, you’re alive,_ he wants to say, but he doesn’t remember how to speak. He’s losing his grasp on how to breathe. It hurts. They jostle him, bearing the bulk of his weight, and it hurts.

 

Bellamy is vaguely aware that they’re escorting him away from the wall of projectiles closing in on them. He wants to tell them to save themselves. His life’s behind him, not ahead of him. Whatever safety lies beyond the tree-line means nothing to him. There is nothing for him over the incline. 

He’s being half-carried half-dragged out of harm’s way. It’s insulting, really, but indignation fizzles as fast as it sparks. There are too many emotions roiling through him. Bittersweet amusement the reigning champion. _Harm,_ he wants to laugh. _They’re getting you out of harm’s way,_ he realises. It’s unclear whether he laughs or sobs. It hurts either way.

Nothing can harm him.  
Nothing can damage him more than this.

_Nothing._

Numbness crashes over him like a cresting wave. Bellamy can't breathe. In his mind’s eye he can see their battlefront camp sprawl around them as they clear the tree-line. He feels like a drunken man observing his surroundings for the first time, easily distracted and yet blind to everything around him. He can barely make sense of the flurry of activity immediately before him. 

Blonde and bloody, voice shrill. It gets closer. Confusion bleeds through the pain. The world grows fuzzy. Bellamy doesn't shrink away from the touch that’s suddenly upon him, even if it sears his skin and dots his vision with white. 

Someone—no, _something_ slams into him. It threatens to bowl him over. The roiling emotions surge through him hot and bitter and vile. He barely tastes the vomit as he empties himself onto the woman before him. The arms supporting him move across his body, overstimulating and unwelcome. 

It doesn’t feel like his body, but he knows it is because he can feel the weight of the hands that move across him. He can feel the burn—hotter and hotter. Within the newfound physical emptiness he can feel the blinding pain grow brighter and brighter and hotter. On and on it goes until it bursts like a supernova. Every seam of his body vibrates from the impact. It grows and pushes and pushes until he collapses under the strain.

Darkness.

***

Bellamy blinks through his tears as he comes to. It might be seconds or years later. Time is a construct and he’s lost the singular reference point in his life. Echo’s gone and without her anchored at his centre everything else trickles into an intelligible mess. It’s hard to make sense of anything, but he tries nevertheless. 

He’s on his back.   
He registers the hands on his body.  
Too many hands, none of which he wants on him.  
The only person he wants to be touched by right now—

—will never touch him again. 

Her fingers will never again card through his beard. 

Her nails will never again rake through his hair. 

Her hand will never again find his. 

Her skin will never again be soft and warm and gold. 

***

Bellamy will never be touched by Echo ever again. 

***

Bellamy will never touch Echo again.

***

Fate has dealt him a double tap.  
Clean and efficient.  
  
(A Mozambique drill would be a mercy, but only _bad_ things come in threes.) 

***

That's when Bellamy recognises the beat echoing through his skull. The drums grow louder and his pulse flickers beneath his skin. Crescendo. _Crescendo._ It’s closing in. Closer and closer. It pays no heed to the walls and doors he’s built over the years, obliterating the floodgates in its passing. It razes everything in its path and engulfs him. The waves—massive and successive—crash over him, roaring in his ears. They soak him to the bone, saturating every cell of his being. 

Bellamy knows this feeling.  
Bellamy knows what this is.  
Except he has never felt it like this before.

(He opens his eyes.) 

Anger. 

(He blinks the world into focus.)

Rage. 

(He sees a face framed by matted blonde hair.)

_Fury._

Bellamy reaches with his good arm, catching Clarke across the head. It's enough to jolt her out of his line of sight. Ignoring his pain and the shouts and the commotion, he turns his head and surges off the damply packed ground. Sitting up makes the world tilt, but he’s got singular focus. Intent, he will seek her just outside his field of vision. 

His uninjured arm is a lethal weapon made of sinew and muscle.  
He pushes off the ground and wraps his fingers around Clarke’s throat. 

Bellamy doesn’t feel the press of a needle, just its dizzying aftermath. Someone at his side breaks his fall. In the brief moments before darkness claims him, fate robs him of one more thing: respite from the unwanted remnants of a life. As if to placate him, fate uses the only voice who can reason with him.

_Yu gonplei nou ste odon, Belomi._


End file.
